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That risk is always there for people who like eggs that aren't cooked until the yolks are solid, says one expert. "It's difficult to say if the risk is any different than it was two weeks ago or two years ago."

CHICAGO — Eggs sunny-side-up are still on the menu. But restaurants nationwide are keeping a closer eye on egg suppliers and reminding diners of the dangers of undercooked food after a massive recall tied to a salmonella outbreak.

"If someone asks for eggs over-easy, what do you do, put a skull and crossbones on their table?" said Louis Tricoli, who owns three Wisconsin restaurants with his family, including one where nearly two dozen people were sickened in late June after likely eating the now-recalled eggs. "Undercooked beef, undercooked pork, chicken, eggs, anything you ask to be undercooked, it's at your own risk."

And so, instead of taking eggs off the menu, many restaurateurs are relying on long-standing menu warnings about the dangers of eating undercooked food. And waitstaffs are fielding questions from concerned guests worried that what they're being served may not be safe.

At Atlanta's West Egg Cafe, business was brisk last weekend when customers chowed through nearly 2,900 eggs over the course of three days. Still, some diners made sure to ask whether the eggs were safe, said Chef Patric Bell. The restaurant's eggs weren't affected by the recall and he said so far no one was changing their breakfast orders.

"If I couldn't get eggs that were safe, I wouldn't serve them at all," he said.

Two Iowa farms, Wright County Egg and Hillandale Farms, recalled about 550 million eggs last week after learning that salmonella may have sickened as many as 1,300 people.

But outside of such outbreaks, salmonella is always occasionally present in the roughly 80 billion eggs sold in their shell in the U.S. each year. The harmful bacteria typically contaminate one out of every 10,000 to 20,000 eggs.

That risk is always there for people who like eggs that aren't cooked until the yolks are solid, said Benjamin Chapman, an assistant professor specializing in food safety at North Carolina State University. "It's difficult to say if the risk is any different than it was two weeks ago or two years ago."

Restaurants can sometimes be breeding grounds for outbreaks if they crack many eggs into a single container when preparing them, which could allow one bad egg to contaminate a whole batch.

The recall isn't enough to scare off Charles Mettler, who ordered an eggs Benedict on Tuesday when he stopped by Drake Diner's in Des Moines, Iowa.

"I'm probably more worried about the Hollandaise sauce as far as cholesterol," Mettler said.

A spokesman for the National Restaurant Association said he hadn't heard of any restaurants dropping eggs from the menu entirely, or switching to pasteurized eggs, which are unshelled eggs heated to kill bacteria. They can also generally only be scrambled or used as an ingredient.

But about a dozen major restaurant chains and many individual restaurants contacted by The Associated Press said they're monitoring the outbreak that's sickened about 1,300 people so far.

The number of illnesses, which can be life-threatening, especially to those with weakened immune systems, is expected to increase.

Late last week, as news the recall linked to two Iowa farms erupted, executives at Waffle House sent reminders to each of their 1,600 locations reminding staff about the importance of thoroughly cooking eggs, though it's still serving them to order. The company said 28 of its restaurants had to destroy egg shipments because of the recall.

At Denny's Corp., where 33 restaurants received recalled eggs, officials are careful to remind customers of their menu warning: "Eggs served over-easy, poached, sunny side-up and soft-boiled may be undercooked and will only be served at the customers' request."

Restaurants need to store eggs below 45 degrees in order to slow growth of salmonella, Chapman said. They also should cook them past the 145-degree mark, when yolks are no longer runny.

That may not have been enough to protect Tricoli's Baker Street restaurant in Kenosha, Wis.

Since customers became ill during a weekend in late June, business is down by half at the restaurant he owns with his family. While investigators worked to figure out the source of the outbreak, he shut down for a week and threw out more than 1,400 eggs along with other ingredients before public health officials traced the source of the bacteria.

"We were cautious from the get-go," said Tricoli, who's now facing at least five lawsuits. "We run a clean restaurant, there's nothing to change."

Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Video: Tainted eggs being reused in food products

Transcript of: Tainted eggs being reused in food products

CARL QUINTANILLA, co-host:Now to that latest on the massive egg recall, and some news that might surprise you. Many of the eggs tied to the farms involved in that nationwide salmonella outbreak could still end up in your kitchen in products like
ice cream
and mayonnaise. Is there really cause for concern? Dr.
Nancy Synderman
is
NBC
's chief medical editor.
Nancy
, good morning to you.

Dr. NANCY SNYDERMAN reporting:Hi, Carl.

QUINTANILLA:We were told to throw away the eggs that were recalled.

SNYDERMAN:Right. Right.

QUINTANILLA:And now we're told that these things are going to show up in products we already buy. How are we supposed to feel about that?

SNYDERMAN:So I think you have to remember that the things we're supposed to throw away are the tainted eggs, and there's a
line in the sand
, that stuff is gone. The eggs and the farms that were producing the
bad eggs
are still making eggs. And what the government is now saying is we will take those to places called breaking plants or cracking plants, where they really -- literally crack open the egg and just use the insides. The insides are then pasteurized and that scientifically we know equivocally, no argument...

QUINTANILLA:Right. Should people be alarmed? Because we're not going to know which products have it. It's probably already in the
food supply
.

SNYDERMAN:No.
Look
, so the most important thing is not to be alarmed.

QUINTANILLA:Right.

SNYDERMAN:Once you pasteurize something it is safe. If you had purchased pasteurized eggs -- but that's only 1 percent of eggs that in your grocery store -- you're going to be OK. It's the unpasteurized stuff. So while I understand that people are very skeptical of the
FDA
, maybe untrusting of the
US government
, and saying you've got to be kidding me, the reality is the inside of the eggs, if they are completely cooked or pasteurized, are safe.

QUINTANILLA:If you've probably bought the recalled eggs...

SNYDERMAN:Mm-hmm.

QUINTANILLA:...can you cook them and will the salmonella then go away?

SNYDERMAN:You are probably going to be safe. But to be prudent, because this has been a recall, you're best to throw away the eggs that have been recalled. Here's the problem. The
FDA
just doesn't have a lot of chops. If you're a
bad egg
producer, I can come to you as the
FDA
and say, '
Carl
, would you please be a good corporate citizen and get rid of the
bad eggs
.' But I can't mandate you to do it. And that's what's really irritating people. It's almost like we need a reorganization of food such that there's a food czar, a new food bureau, something that combines the
USDA
and the
FDA
and puts them together and says 'look, we're going to protect the
US Food
supply.'

QUINTANILLA:Right.

SNYDERMAN:Spinach, this, hamburger, peanut butter. At some point, the American public is going to say, 'what -- we don't trust anybody.' And too, in a country with the resources that we have, we can't get food from the farm fields to the tables? That is an egregious, egregious move. And frankly, why should Americans trust that our
food supply
is OK? The stuff that they're going to do to fix these
bad eggs
, yes, we'll be OK. But I think it raises a much bigger problem than we have to address.

QUINTANILLA:A lot of cross currents and regulation in this country.

SNYDERMAN:Well, dopey stuff.
Congress
has to step up to the plate. This is on their -- they can do this. But
Congress
is going to have to frankly, get some chops too and do it.

QUINTANILLA:I like that you feel strongly about this.

SNYDERMAN:Well, it's just ridiculous. I mean, why shouldn't you trust the food that's on your table?